Sunday Morning Brunch

It's gotten really warm here, so it's been raining. It puts you in the mood for really comforting food, like French Toast. :) After church this morning, came back to fix french toast, specifically my dad's french toast. It's something that my sisters and I loved having when we were younger, especially when served with iced milk.

It's really easy to fix and fast.

Daddy's French Toast
8 eggs
1 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
dash of nutmeg

Combine all ingredients well. Use day old bread for your toast, soak in egg mixture and cook in a skillet brought to medium heat or 350 degrees on an electric skillet. Serve with maple syrup. :)

A great brunch for Sunday morning or even dinner :)

The Little Things....

I love how the little things in life are the ones that inspire you to bake. Or at least, they inspire me. :) Sometimes, it's a phrase or a song, sometimes it's a picture a landscape or a smell. Then you just get started thinking, "Hey, that sounds really good" or even "how can I reproduce that or make it better"?

Sometimes it's just the sight. Seems a little philosophical for my post, but oh well.....

I felt inspire to bake banana bread this past week. It was probably because we go through bananas like mad in this house, and for once there were some very ripe bananas sitting in the kitchen. Since I know that no one will eat them.....I stole them :)

Banana bread is such a comforting thing, I love the way it smells. So to share that wonderful smell, here's the recipe that I like to use.

Banana Bread with Pecans

2 cups AP flour

1 1/2 teaspoons of baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 overripe bananas

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup butter, melted and cooled to room temp

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup pecans

Combine flour, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a mixing bowl, mash bananas together; I like to leave them a little bit chunky for good texture in the bread. Mix in the sugar and combine well.

Add butter, eggs, and vanilla. Once well combine, add dry ingredients and mix until just incorporated. Add pecans.

Pour batter into two prepared loaf pans.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 35-40 minute or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes our clean.

Just a thought, with this bread it might be good to use butter pecans. For that, bake pecans at 350 for about 5 to 10 minutes, until fragrant. Add 1 or 2 tablespoons of butter to the pan and mix well, then add to batter.

Also, this bread is really good with chocolate chips. :)

Shirley's Fudgy Brownies

For my birthday last year, I was given a copy of Shirley Corriher's Bakewise, which I love! It's full of so many wonderful recipes and knowledge; it's definitely a go-to book. :)

I decided to bake some brownies last night, and I love Shirley's recipe for Fudgy Brownies and they are always popular! So, I thought I would share the recipe. She says that it's best for these to cool overnight before cutting them, and this is true, but they are just as good when they come right out of the oven. Just give them about 10 minutes to cool and serve!

Shirley's Fudgy Brownies

1 1/2 cups pecans

1 1.2 cup plus 2 T butter

12 oz semisweet chocolate

1 oz German chocolate

4 large eggs

3 egg yolks

1 1/2 cups dark brown sugar

1 cup powdered sugar

2 T white sugar

3 T light corn syrup

1 T vanilla

3/4 t salt

1 1/2 cups AP flour

Preheat oven to 300 degrees

Spread the pecans onto a baking sheet and roast for 10 minutes. When the nuts are hot, stir in 2 T of butter. When cool, coarsely chop and set aside

Line a 13 X 9 inch pan with parchment paper sprayed with cooking spray or use release foil. Make sure to leave enough of an edge to easy lift brownies from the pan.

Place the remaining butter in a bowl with chocolates. Melt butter and chocolate over simmering water, making to sure that no water touches the chocolate. This can cause the chocolate to seize. Set aside.

Combine eggs in a bowl, and beat lightly. With minimum stirring, combine eggs, sugars, corn syrup, vanilla, and salt.

Again, with minimum stirring, add chocolate mixture to egg mixture. Once combined, add flour, and mix until just incorporated. Pour batter into prepared pan and smooth top.

Bake brownies until they begin to pull away from the edge of the pan, about an hour. My oven runs a little hot, so mine really need only 50 to 55 minutes. Brownies should be slightly underdone. When you insert a toothpick, it should come out with some gooey brownie. :)

Now here are your options. Either cool completely in the pan and then refrigerate overnight before cutting. But if you can't wait that long (like me) Allow brownies to cool for 10 minutes, lift out of pan and cut into them.

Absolutely wonderful with a scoop of ice cream!

Early Morning

First off, I still cannot post pictures since camera is still MIA. I believe I might have left it at home in GA, which of course, does not help me at all.

But to get to the important stuff, here at school, I have a lot of friends in fraternities and soroities, seeing as I am in a sorority myself. But last week, the Sigma Chi fraternity had their initiation week, aka "Hell Week". It's actually fairly enjoyable for us, minus the fact that they come and yell at us at 6:30 in the morning.

To make their week slightly better, my sorority sisters and I always fix breakfast for these gentlemen; it's something we've been doing since I came here. Anyway, I thought I would share our menu and a recipe.

"Hell Week" Breakfast

Southwest Egg Casserole, modified from Savory Sweet Life

Bacon

Monkey Bread

Hasbrowns

Oj, coffee, milk, etc.

I really wanted to share the recipe for Monkey Bread, which is so easy and absolutely delicious.

25-30 frozen yeast rolls

1 cup brown sugar

1 package non-instant butterscotch pudding

1/2 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/2 cup chopped pecans

1 stick melted butter

Add rolls to a greased tube pan. Combine brown sugar and pudding. Mix well and pour over the rolls. Combine white sugar and cinnamon and pour over rolls. Top with chopped pecans and pour butter over the top. Let rise over night, no more than 8 hours.

Bake at 350 for 25-30 minutes. Enjoy!!

Absolutely delicious and reidiculously easy :)

Low Country

Every now and then, I get in the mood for some good home Southern cooking. And today, I really wanted Shrimp and Grits. I didn't have anyone in particular to fix it for, but my friend Anna came over and we had a really good meal. I'm sorry I have no pictures though, my camera is MIA. But I will tell you the menu.

White Cheddar Grits with Venison Sausage and Shrimp

Buttermilk Biscuits

Chocolate Lava Muffins (from Alton Brown's book, The Early Years)

The venison sausage was made fresh from a friend at work. He killed the deer himself and made his own sausage. It was wonderful with lots of jalapenoes!!

Sorry!

I must apologize for not posting in a long time. This past semester was crazy! Finishing up my thesis and getting ready for presenting and all of the other things that life entails kind of pushed my blog into the background.

I'm hoping to have more time to bake this semester, so hopefully you will see a post soon!!

Pumpkin-Brown Butter Cupcakes

First, I must apologize that I haven't posted in a long time. School is horribly busy, especially since I'm trying to finish my senior thesis, a requirement so that I can graduate. So since that's been taking up a lot of my time, I haven't been able to get any good pictures of anything I've baked.

But now, I'm visiting my sister in Chicago, who happens to be a wonderful photographer. We baked Pumpkin-Brown Butter Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting, courtesy of Martha Stewart. That lady really does know what she's doing because those cupcakes were absolutely decadent.

Great for Fall. Enjoy your daily source of pumpkin. :)